


twelve stories told (only) with a cocktail in hand

by orphan_account



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: Brother/Sister Incest, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-01
Updated: 2007-02-01
Packaged: 2019-08-22 18:36:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16603379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: twelve stories told (only) with a cocktail in hand:a romance forty years in the makingthis, Michael Bluth would say, is the worst romantic comedy ever told. but — he'll tell it anyway.





	twelve stories told (only) with a cocktail in hand

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [twelve stories told (only) with a cocktail in hand](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/432233) by falseeeyelashes. 



**I**

**oh, my friend, you haven’t changed; looking rough and living strange —**

**and i know you’ve got a taste for it, too.**

 

* * *

 

His father likes to drink a scotch on the rocks every day after work. Michael likes to sit there with him, in his study, his algebra book open or a social studies paper half-written before him, and he’ll finish his assignments as his father finishes his drink (or two; okay — or more).

"Son," he will say, legs crossed, head leaning back (like a whiskey advertisement gone sloppy and almost drunk), intoning wisdom passed down through after-school specials. "I want you to know. You’re never going to find answers in the bottom of an empty glass." And he will pause, give his glass a firm shake and the ice will make sharp, biting, tinkling sounds as it settles; Michael will nod, pen or pencil still in hand — Lindsay in her bedroom on the phone, GOB missing in action, Buster with their mother.

(The Bluth family home feels empty and clean, warm — with the Orange County sun falling in through wide picture windows.)

George, Sr. will clear his throat, cough a little, and finally continue, mumbling under his breath. "But you do find excuses…"

(He didn’t need a one-armed man and a gallon of fake blood to make this lesson stick. It is, after all, the Bluthian way.)

 

* * *

* * *

 

**II**

**used to be one of the rotten ones and i liked you for that.**

 

* * *

 

GOB is hitting on Michael’s prom date. He feels like he should have expected this, but Lucille won’t stop adjusting his tie and Buster is giggling in the doorway and George, Sr. is lecturing Lindsay’s date (a football player or a basketball player or just a hot guy that sees nothing wrong with fucking on the first date).

She smirks at him over her shoulder as she leaves the room: bright green dress that dips too low in the back instead of the front and he watches the way her shoulder blades roll as she slips an arm through her date’s.

Drunk in a limo, that’s Lindsay; awkwardly approaching a panic attack as he attaches his date’s corsage (sans courage), that’s Michael.

 

* * *

 

His friend — Tim Skillings — had stolen his father’s flask and a generous helping of bourbon. They take turns drawing long swigs from the flask in the boy’s bathroom before heading out onto the dance floor — a dated disco ball and "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

(This place feels like total fear and round lunch tables and fresh red apples and locker doors that never shut all the way.)

Later:

his date — Eleanor Wagner, and, yes, her name matches her beauty (bland, unoriginal, anachronistic in a stuck-on-the-prairie kind of way) — slaps him across the face as he makes a go for her left breast through her magenta dress and yells things about being a proper girl and a lady, and, no, Michael Bluth, she will not…  _do it_  with you on prom night.

Insert: huff of indignation (for her) and horrible, creeping rejection and a touch of nausea (for him).

 

* * *

 

He gets home and he’s seventeen and the house is quiet and it takes him four whole minutes to get the key to fit the lock.

There aren’t any lights on, the entire downstairs dark and he stumbles over a rug and nearly knocks over the lamp and starts giggling to himself, all alone.

He trips his way upstairs and Lindsay’s door is wide open, the light still on.

She’s in her underwear.

"Get lucky tonight?" she asks, waggling her eyebrows and then erupts into a hysterical giggle. Her stomach is paler than he expected it to be and she has a small waist, small hips, and he can see the curve of the bone on either side that meets her black panties. He’s drunk and everything about her seems small, he thinks. Her breasts are small, yet they’re practically pouring out of the black strapless bra and in the back of his mind he knows this is wrong because he’s drunk and it’s late and there are really no circumstances under which he should be ogling his twin sister.

"Shut up," he says but the words seem funny in his mouth, slurred and sloppy, and she laughs again, harder this time (his eyes drift from her face down, her breasts bouncing as she laughs and he is so sick, isn’t he?).

He retreats to his bedroom and he locks the door and finally exhales. Funny, he thinks. He’s more turned on now than when he was feeling up his prom date.

"Oh, God," he mutters.

It’s not funny. Really, it’s just disgusting.

(He blames Tim Skillings and that freaking flask and Eleanor Wagner for being such a cock-tease  ~~and Lindsay for not wearing any clothes~~.)

 

* * *

* * *

 

**III**

**that day we walked a little deeper, breathless, lost and too alive to stop.**

 

* * *

 

He comes home for a weekend in October. He goes to school out East, eighteen, with mussed brown hair and an Oxford shirt, boat shoes and tales about summers spent on yachts, at sea (he fits in perfectly here — in Boston, in Cambridge, above in the ivy tower). His dad lets him take the company jet home and he feels like a big-shot, his business management textbook under his arm and pink Lacoste polo hanging on his frame (it is still the 80’s, after all).

He takes a cab from the airport to an empty house and yells "Hello?" in the entryway. He drops his overnight bag, that business management text, by the stairs and wanders deeper into the Bluth family home.

There’s the family portrait above the fireplace and the living room is clean and spotless. The French doors in the living room leading out to the balcony sit slightly ajar. He pushes the door open, and there, leaning a little too far over the railing, fresh cigarette in hand, a bottle of their mother’s vodka at her feet, is Lindsay.

"Michael!" she chirps over her shoulder, spinning around to lean against the railing and she’s wearing a short, black sundress despite the fact it’s late October (near Halloween) and her hair’s still long and gigantic pearl earrings hang from her ears. She’s barefoot and stands there, one foot rubbing against her bare shin.

Hands jammed in his pockets (khakis, respectable) he steps out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind him. "Where the hell is everyone?" he asks by way of greeting.

She still hasn’t smoked her cigarette yet, too much ash now, and she scowls at him as she says, "Well, nice to see you, too." She crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow and he stands too close to the door. "Daddy and Mom had some charity thing or benefit and they took Buster with them. And GOB… well, I really have no idea where he might be."

She raises the cigarette to her lips and dramatically inhales, sucking her cheeks in and instantly starts coughing.

"I didn’t know you smoked," he says dryly, crossing the balcony over to her, the wrought iron railing still warm under his hand. He takes the cigarette from her fingers (nails painted what could only be called ‘hooker red’ or ‘red light district’ or something infinitely more clever) and grounds it out under his heel.

She watches him and says, "I don’t, Michael," and she always does that with his name — her voice drawing out the sound of the ‘i’ until it becomes a near whine. "I’m just trying a new image out, a new attitude," and she coughs a little more, throwing her hair over her shoulder and he ducks his head to hide his smile.

"Yeah? How’s that working out for you?"

She smiles, bright and false, and, "Wonderfully," she says and then smiles for real (eyes squinting up, faint lines framing her lips) off of the look on his face.

He settles into one of the deck chairs as she picks up the bottle of vodka, pours a more than healthy helping for herself, passes the bottle to him. It’s still cold, beads of condensation wetting his palm.

"So, what are you doing here at home, Lindsay? Weekends at UCLA just not cutting it for you?" He doesn’t have a glass so he takes a swift pull from the bottle and winces as it bites its way down his throat.

"Oh? No one told you?" The glass is at her lips and he can’t see her mouth over the rim of it. "I dropped out. Like a month ago or something."

"What? Lindsay? What the hell — It’s college. This is important, I mean, this is your future. Why would you — "

"Oh, chill, Michael. Daddy’s already offered me a job at his company," and she sounds triumphant, like she somehow cheated the system or one-upped him, or both.

He is surprised, and he drinks some more. "Yeah? How’s the whole Working Girl lifestyle treating you?"

"I haven’t actually started yet. You know, I had to update my wardrobe — what kind of ‘working girl’ would I be dressed like this?"

"The kind that works the street corner?"

"Hilarious, Michael."

"So, if you haven’t been in school and you haven’t been working, what have you been doing?"

"I told you: shopping. And catching up on some light reading, working on my tan. Trying to find a suitable man with large coffers to marry."

"Excuse me? Large — what?"

"Coffers." She pauses. "You know, deep pockets." He stares at her some more. "A lot of money, Michael. Really." He still stares at her. She shrugs. "I tried to read  _Pride and Prejudice_  the other day."

"How ambitious."

"I thought so."

He takes a heavy gulp of the vodka and regrets it as his chest burns. "You do realize how ridiculous you sound," he says. "You’re only eighteen but you’re already looking for a husband? What’s that all about?"

"Well, what else am I going to do? Work?" She laughs. "Besides, Mom always said that being a wife is a full-time job. And I could totally do that."

"Yes, our mother is a shining, pristine example of what a good wife should be."

"You’ve got a point there," she grumbles and throws back the rest of her drink and reaches for the bottle.

 

* * *

 

"I’m wasted," he murmurs, crooked smile, and she giggles; the night is warm, the moon not quite full and it’s funny: he hasn’t really been homesick, until now.

They sit silent for a little, the sky dark; there are no stars, there’s only smog.

"What would you do if I kissed you right now?" she asks, and when he looks up, she’s smiling, bright white teeth, and every single time she has ever gotten him in trouble (that time they — accidentally — broke GOB’s arm, the time he got caught smoking pot, the time they convinced Buster that the world had ended and they were the only survivors) it started with a seemingly innocent question and that smile of hers.

He’s drunk and his mind can’t keep up with his mouth, or the other way around, or however that’s supposed to go.

"What? Why? What? Do you want to?" and the second the last question crosses his lips he gets that was the one question he shouldn’t have asked.

The smile fades and she doesn’t answer, and he hadn’t either (you don’t answer questions with more still), but if he was being honest he would have said, ‘I’d kiss you back,’ because it’s the truth.

She watches him, backlit against light from inside the house and it’s not even that late yet and when she moves to him he’s not surprised. He is when her hands cup his jaw and her lips meet his own, and maybe he expected hard and teeth and rough, but she kisses him tentatively, near chastely (but, really, there’s nothing chaste about this). Her lips are wet and slick and he can’t be thinking right now (he can’t) because his tongue darts out against her lips and she gasps, mouth parting and she tastes the same as him: sharp and biting and alcoholic.

His fingers tangle in her hair, clutching hard and fast at the nape of her neck and her fingers curl around his shoulders. He’s kissing her, or she’s kissing him and there’s probably too much tongue but it doesn’t really matter — her teeth lightly skim his bottom lip and his hips move up off the chair. She settles on his lap, knees on either side of his hips as she grinds down on top of him — dress riding up, tan thighs — and  _Jesus fucking Christ,_  this is the worst thing he’s ever done.

And just like that, with his mouth open against hers, his hand moving up toward her breast, a door slams, something crashes and their mother yells, "Buster!"

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t visit home again, not until the semester ends. He returns for the winter holidays and Lindsay has a boyfriend now, Roger or Richard or Ronald, and he has messy brown hair and wears Oxford shirts and studies business law.

 

* * *

* * *

 

**IV**

**cheers, darlin’; i got your wedding bells in my ear.**

 

* * *

 

He’s getting married tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

Lindsay comes to the bachelor party and as the first round is being passed around the table (a strip club, not the best nor the worst, doesn’t matter: there’s beer and naked tits) he asks her what the hell she is doing here.

"It’s a bachelor party, Michael," like that somehow explains everything, and over a pitcher of beer he raises an eyebrow and she sighs. "It’s a bachelor party, therefore they’re all bachelors and therefore they’re all single. Duh."

He looks at her like she’s crazy (which she might well be) and instead of explaining that isn’t how a bachelor party actually works (at all), he starts in on his first glass of beer.

 

* * *

 

Strip clubs, he decides, are incredibly awkward. There are naked women he can’t touch (and, really, probably doesn’t want to), he’s surrounded by his friends, and he just so happens to be hard as a rock. It’s embarrassing. Or awkward. Maybe both.

(This bar feels tragic and used, the songs old and played before.)

Lindsay sits across the table, blatantly hitting on Tim Skillings to what appears to be limited success and her dress puckers in front and when she leans forward like that, one hand playing with her hair, he can see straight down her dress.

She’s not wearing a bra tonight.

He stares and he has a feeling it’s pretty damn obvious but, really, what did she expect? She leans forward a little farther and he can see nipple and this is even hotter than the women bumping and grinding to bad Madonna music on stage. He drinks some more, watching her, and he thinks about how inappropriate it would be for him to drag Lindsay off to a bathroom here and to fuck her (fuck his sister) the night before his wedding.

The answer: Really, really, disgustingly inappropriate. And illegal, you sick bastard.

She leans back in her chair and catches his eye. She smiles, slow and it’s dangerous because he recognizes that smile (balcony in the heat, the night — ‘what would you do if I kissed you right now?’).

He hates her, because, really, this is entirely her fault ( _this_  meaning Lindsay’s entirely intentional peep show and the fact Michael is minutes from coming in his pants).

She keeps talking to Tim or whoever but she keeps looking at him. He drinks more.

GOB sits down next to him and pounds him on the back and mentions his wedding tomorrow (now today and he wonders if it’s poor form for the groom to be hungover). Lindsay’s smile falters if only for a second.

The next day, at the altar, Lindsay dressed in blue, he decides that he made the entire night up. It was just bad lighting and bad beer; she really couldn’t care less.

 

* * *

 

He gets drunk at his wedding, and really. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a celebration and there’s an open bar and one glass becomes two and two becomes three, and you know how it goes (and really, Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t need to be notified about this; actually, if you must know, the Bluths are forbidden from ever attending one of their meetings. This is Lucille’s fault. You don’t want to know why).

He tells Lindsay, "She’s nothing like you." (But Lindsay had said first: ‘You’ve done well for yourself, Michael,’ with some kind of weird satisfaction — gloating, even — that made him more than slightly angry.)

She scowls and drains her flute of champagne in one long gulp.

 

* * *

* * *

 

**V**

**the cold war is on between you and me — cry into my christmas cake.**

 

* * *

 

He’s in his late twenties (pushing thirty) and it’s Christmas Day and his parents are fighting (this was to be expected).

(Apparently she had been flirting the night before with one of George, Sr.’s associates, a Mr. Kenneth Lay. There was an altercation involving the two of them, some mistletoe and entirely too much eggnog.)

"Really, Michael," his mother says as she adjusts a wreath on the wall. "This is all in violation of the number one rule: what happens while drunk doesn’t count."

"Yeah, not quite as catchy as ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ And if that’s the case, Mom, then your entire life has just been one long, never-ending bad dream."

His mother gives him one of those smiles that’s more of a sneer and he can hear his wife and his son laughing in the kitchen.

(This apartment feels nothing like nostalgia but still like the holidays and something a lot like disappointment.)

The door swings open with a "God bless us everyone!" and Tobias clasping his hands together and Lindsay behind him with too many shopping bags (and her daughter).

 

* * *

* * *

 

**VI**

**and i will hang my head, hang my head low.**

 

* * *

 

His wife dies, George Michael goes to bed, and he doesn’t cry. Instead, he sits up all night, down in the family room watching infomercials with the volume turned all the way down and destroys a bottle of middling scotch (like father like son).

 

* * *

 

Three AM and he’s shit-faced (and a widower) and he mutters to himself: "Somehow, I’ve made a huge mistake."

You see, Michael Bluth is like all people: he once had this image of the future, he had this image of his life, and there, he was something of a success, someone with lifelong love and a family that was all that he needed.

(Poor, Michael Bluth. What he doesn’t know? Happy endings take longer than expected.)

 

* * *

 

The weekend brings the funeral and a procession of relatives he had forgotten or never actually met (her side, not his; you can spot a Bluth from a mile away).

Lindsay arrives in a black trench coat tied tightly at the waist, large black sunglasses and her hair, still long and blonde.

She hugs him and whispers, "I’m so sorry," in his ear and his hands make rustling noises over the fabric of her coat as he wraps his arms around her waist.

 

* * *

* * *

 

**VII**

**can you ever see me as you did before? can you ever see me like you did once more?**

 

* * *

 

Michael and his sister haven’t spoken in a year. Neither has acknowledged this.

 

* * *

 

They play Monopoly (normal family activity) and they’re all a family again and Lindsay and Tobias and Maeby move in, and she takes her drinks just like she always has: straight up and in quick succession.

"You should have called me," he says, head down, his finger tracing a circle around the bottom of his cup.

"Michael," she says, and then sighs, pushing her hair off her face. "I thought we went over this already. I’m no good at lying when it comes to you and I really, really didn’t want you to know the truth."

"About your marriage? Because, really, Lindsay. Hate to break it to you: the cat’s been out of the bag for awhile about that one."

"Yeah," she says, generically. She takes half a sip, licks her lips and he thinks the funny thing about her is that she never looks older; she always looks the same (it’s comforting). "Has it really been a year?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"Hmm." She finishes her drink and watches him, the house still and silent, their children asleep (this makes it sound like they’re married, a family in terms other than those they already possess).

 

* * *

 

They start arguing; other than drinking heavily and conning others into wrongdoing, it’s what they’re good at.

"You don’t need to remind me that I’m the great disappointment of this family."

"Actually, I’m pretty sure that honor went to GOB."

She’s quiet, with a smile, head tilted to the side, her cheek on her shoulder and if they were different people (say, not brother and sister) he’d say that she looks coy.

(The model home feels like something familiar, something too warm and it’s almost hard to breathe.)

"I’m sorry, Michael," she finally says, staring at the table (faux wood, and obviously so) and when she does look up, he is unsure what to make of her expression.

"For what?" and his voice is unsteady, sounds funny to his ears.

She frowns a little. "Oh. I have to clarify what I’m apologizing for?"

He laughs. He’s missed this.

(Oh, let’s be honest. He’s missed her.)

 

* * *

* * *

 

**VIII**

**you're just a man, you get what you can — we all do what we can.**

 

* * *

 

They’ve been here for long enough that this place (the model home, the Bluth company,  _this_ ) almost feels like normal.

It’s after eleven and George Michael and Maeby sleep and Tobias rehearses and Lindsay reads the Arts section and Michael reads the Business.

Oh, and he just so happens to have the hiccups.

"Goddamnit," he mutters, refolding the newspaper and scanning the day’s weather that’s already come to pass. "Hey," he shouts over to Lindsay, bare feet propped up on the coffee table, "how do you get rid of the hiccups? You have to scare someone, right? Like yell ‘boo!’ or something to that effect? Lindsay? Hey, Lindsay." He hiccups again. "Say something to scare me."

"Fuck me," she says.

"What?" and he's pretty sure his jaw has hit the countertop and  _what do you even say to that_?

"Sorry. I thought you were Tobias for a second." She closes the newspaper and Michael’s always found it funny that she’s the literary one (and, yes, this is Michael trying to change the subject because all he can think of is the word ‘fuck’ and Lindsay, laid out naked, Lindsay wanting him to — ).

"It worked though, didn’t it?" she says, and that bitch. She actually smiles.

 

* * *

 

He goes for a beer from the fridge (a Heineken, pops the top off, the beer’s not cold enough).

The house is dark, save for the light in the kitchen, and after another sip he mutters, "Pull it together, buddy," then takes another, not sure what exactly he means.

 

* * *

 

He tries to fall asleep. Really. He tries.

He’s restless and his hand wanders, slips in below his pajama bottoms, and his hand is already wrapped around his hardening cock before he processes that this might be a bad idea.

He’s a man and he’s horny and he hasn’t gotten laid in awhile and it starts with the overused fantasies (dirty nurses or cheerleaders or whatever tacky cliché it is that gets men off), but it’s not working that way, and it’s his bedroom and there’s blonde hair, and, God, he is one sick fuck.

(In his head, she says ‘fuck me,’ she says ‘fuck me’ again — or ‘fuck me again;’ this really doesn’t matter — only she says it like she means it, desperate, and his hand tightens and he tries not to groan just like he tried not to do this tonight and he bites his lip a little too hard.)

He’s kissed her before, and he remembers this, and he wonders if she still kisses like that, if her hair would still feel as soft under his hand, and she’s his sister,  _she’s his sister —_

He comes on his stomach, a relieved sigh, and he cleans up with a handful of Kleenex, and, yes —

The hiccups are back again.

 

* * *

* * *

 

**IX**

**love, sister, it’s just a kiss away — it’s just a kiss away.**

 

* * *

 

Normal people don’t do this, Michael Bluth thinks. They don’t — on a random day of the week, on the evening before Christmas Eve — get smashed with their twin sister for no other reason than that they can. Sipping on his second drink, talking about Tobias and his cut-offs, he thinks that maybe ‘normal people’ isn’t that great of a barometer to set himself against (as in: normal people don’t ride a bike to work, where they happen to head up a former Fortune 500 company; they don’t live in a model home; they don’t drive a car with an attached staircase; they don’t associate with the very people that he calls family —

see: the list is too long already and we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet).

 

* * *

 

She’s a pretty girl, Michael thinks, the booze loosening both his tongue and his mouth and that little valve in the back of his mind he fondly refers to as ‘repression.’ But, really, and they’ve moved on to scotch now, she’s not a girl. She’s a woman (you don’t call a female over the age of thirty ‘a girl’). She’s a woman and she’s on the floor and he’s always liked that thing about California where even in the winter months you still dress like it’s summer (all bared limbs and toned legs and no stockings or boots or layers to mask what’s underneath).

If she moves the right way, he can almost see up her skirt.

 

* * *

 

He’s not sure how it happens. He does know that at one point he moved from the chair to the floor and she was still there, sprawled out on her back with her hair fanned out around her, her toes twisting together.

It starts with a hand on her knee, his fingers rubbing gently behind her kneecap. Her skin is soft and he’s not sure why he’s doing this (it’s wrong — it feels right — he’s too drunk to rationalize).

"Michael?" A heavy breath from her and her leg, her thigh, feels hot. "Michael? What are you doing?"

"I don’t… I don’t know," and he freezes, his hand still on her leg.

She props herself up on her elbows. "I didn’t mean for you to stop."

 

* * *

 

He’s glad she wore a skirt.

 

* * *

 

His mouth is hot and wet and open against her, and he thinks he moans first (into her and she squirms against him, his chin brushing her inner thigh) and she quickly follows. Her skirt hiked up around her hips, her panties down around her feet.

He’s not very dignified about it, drunk and clumsy and definitely sloppy, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She twists her fingers in her hair and she pulls (just hard enough) as he slides two fingers inside her.

She comes panting "Please, Michael, please, please,  _please_ ,  _Michael —_ " and then goes very still.

He leans back against the side of the couch, the taste of her still there on his tongue, and he holds the bottle of scotch like he’s contemplating a sip, but sets it down instead.

She crawls over to him and he expects her to sit down next to him, and maybe they’ll laugh about this, maybe they’ll kiss, or maybe they’ll have the dreaded awkward conversation that just has to come at some point.

That doesn’t happen.

Instead, she’s still on her knees, she’s still there, almost above him, and she kisses him once and as he leans forward for more she pulls away.

And then —

Her hands play with the zipper, play with him through his pants, and the zipper is down and —

"What are… what are you doing?" he asks, his mouth dry, and her fingers dip in under the waistband of both his pants and boxers and she slowly pulls them down, stopping at his thighs.

"Returning the favor," she says, head bowed slightly, her hair brushing his bare thighs, and he almost loses it right there.

Her mouth is wet on the tip of his cock and he hits his head on the arm of the couch.

(This, it feels like trouble and danger and all kinds of red flags and ‘do not enter’ signs.)

It crosses his mind that anyone could see this — they’re in the fucking family room — and he pants a little harder, his hips buck again, pushing him farther into her mouth.

(This doesn’t last long, a hand on his hip, clenched muscles, clenched fists, her hair under her fingers, her tongue and her mouth and — )

He comes and she wipes her mouth, almost politely, with the back of her hand and he can’t catch his fucking breath.

 

* * *

 

The next day, angry and at the office, she tells him that she had a great time last night. He instinctively answers that he did too and doesn’t let himself wonder what the hell that might mean.

(He doesn’t let this happen again.)

 

* * *

* * *

 

**X**

**she would never say where she came from; yesterday don’t matter if it’s gone.**

 

* * *

 

They have sex several months (not quite a year) after, enough time having passed that none of it seems quite real (Lucille would have been proud, the whole incest thing notwithstanding).

 

* * *

 

He gets home from work (and there’s a failing company to deal with, some light treason in an Iraq deal, Saddam’s Palaces, ‘Solid as a Rock’ and a multitude of others that make his head ache and spin) and Lindsay is laying on the couch, reading  _Architectural Digest_  of all things.

He sits down next to her, loosens his tie, and they make small talk: he tells her about his day in a quick sentence and she does the same, and he starts to complain and she whips out her usual lines of comfort, and then.

She kisses him.

(There’s no warning, but, really, is there ever? Most people — unless they’re GOB — don’t announce ‘I’m going to kiss you’ and then actually do so.

There hadn’t even been that long moment of gazing into each other’s eyes or whatever — he really needs to start watching less TV. She had been looking at her hands and picking at her nail polish and had told him that he was a good guy. And then she had kissed him, both hands cupping his face.)

He opens his mouth to her, his hands settling low on her hips, tongues meeting, and his hands move to the small of her back (under her shirt, warm skin) and he pulls her closer against him.

It’s a progression of things, he thinks, near rationally, in the back of his mind, and her hands are trapped against his chest and his hand moves farther up the length of her back, the clasp of her bra right there.

And it’s ridiculous (it’s terrible) because he’s hard already and has a leg between her own and she moves herself against him in a dizzying way.

"Michael. Michael — " she pants against his mouth, his cheek, his jaw. "We shouldn’t — this is just —  _Michael_  — "

"Shut up," he says in return, his hair skimming along and under her chin; he can feel her pulse under his lips. "Shut up, shut up, shut up. Shut. Up," he repeats over and over (if she keeps talking, if she keeps talking like this, he’s going to remember, reason will filter through, he’ll come back to himself, good and proper Michael Bluth).

She’s almost splayed across his lap and he’s reclining awkwardly and her fingers stumble over too many buttons and as his thumb passes over her nipple (through her shirt, still too many layers) she stops, head leaning back and moans (he can feel her fingers curling against his chest).

"Fuck," she pants, and suddenly she’s off him, and he stays there, shirt half-unbuttoned and hair in disarray. Her jeans are halfway down her legs before he gets the fact that’s she not leaving and his breath catches and on a heady exhale his hands move to his belt.

 

* * *

 

His cock in her hand (tight fist, red nails) and she straddles him and he watches her and she watches him, and this is how it’s supposed to go, isn’t it?

She sinks down on him, he doesn’t breathe and she makes this funny choked sound, and it’s so strange. He pushes up into her — the air conditioning humming in the background, a car commercial on the television — and there is just the most incredible sense of  _finally_.

A long time coming, and half the time he hates her, the other half disappointed and frustrated with her because she’s so wrong. She’s spoiled and pampered and expects the world to fall at her feet and she’s sad, she’s pathetic (she could have been so much more —  ~~she could have been his~~ ). She’s his sister and she’s family and she seems to want him just as badly as he wants her.

He rolls them, clumsy maneuver, and she’s under him, her ankles locked behind his back, head hanging off the side of the couch, and he thrusts.

(She comes before he does and kisses him hard — just like he imagined she always would. She mutters what sounds like ‘I love you’ in his ear, and would it be cliché to say that this is the point when he finally slips over the edge?)

 

* * *

 

She stands up and she still has her shirt on and she’s not shy but she grabs her underwear and her jeans, pulls them on in quick, jerky motions, tucks her hair behind her ears, and says, simply, "Yeah."

She says it again, less sure, not really smiling, and she backs her way into the hall, and he’s still half-naked on the couch.

He listens to the pipes as they creak and groan and as the shower turns on with a start.

 

* * *

 

She acts like nothing happened. She putters around the kitchen in her robe with a rolled up magazine in her hand, brews a pot of tea (‘it’s supposed to do wonders for the skin; you should probably have some too, Michael’) and rambles on about the latest insult their mother lobbed her way.

(See, it’s the fact he says and thinks things like ‘their mother’ and ‘their father’ and ‘their family’ that makes being near her too difficult.)

"Lindsay…" he finally says, interrupts, tries for a beginning, whatever.

She stops in place, hand on her hip and the teakettle starts a slow whining whistle behind her. She arches an eyebrow and her hair’s still wet and everything about her says ‘I dare you.’

He’s not a fool.

But, later, on the couch (the scene of the crime):

"I know, Michael," she says. "It was creepy and wrong and should never have happened. And we probably broke the law. Great." She sighs heavily, her mug of tea abandoned on the coffee table (that issue of  _Architectural Digest_  lying next to it). "We’re never drinking together again."

"We weren’t drunk."

"Yeah. But we should have been."

 

* * *

* * *

 

**XI**

**jaw clenched tight we talked all night, oh, but what the hell did we say?**

 

* * *

 

It all falls apart, and father, grandfather and son find themselves south of the border.

The first night in Mexico his father drags George Michael and him to a bar where George Michael eats tacos and he drinks margaritas with his father.

(Mexico tastes like sand and grit and that life you didn’t expect you’d ever lead.)

 

* * *

 

Several margaritas later:

"I’m in love," he mumbles. "I’m so in love."

"With who?" George Michael asks him.

"Lindsay. I’m in love with Lindsay," and he chuckles and grimaces around a mouthful of margarita and he pronounces her name funny, splitting it in half (‘Lind-say’).

"Aunt Lindsay?" George Michael yelps, eyes wide.

"Her?" his father asks.

"Yeah…"

"She’s your sister…" George Michael stammers and if Michael was just a little more (okay, a lot more) sober, this wouldn’t be funny. At all.

"Adopted," and he finishes his drink but keeps the empty glass in his hand.

"Can’t really blame you. Girl’s a knockout."

"Yeah… No, wait. What? Ew, Dad. Seriously?"

"Oh, what? So only you get to say the inappropriate things around here? Where’s the fun in that, Mikey?"

"But… but," George Michael starts, "if you’re  _in love_ ," and he says those two words like it’s the grossest, most unrealistic thing probably ever, "with Aunt Lindsay why was it such a big deal when I told you about Maeby?"

He tries to answer and he tries to remember the number of margaritas in the last couple of hours, and he fails miserably at both. "I honestly have no idea," he says instead.

"Jesus Christ," his father mutters, shaking his head. "I’m incarcerated for a nice chunk of time, I get out and everyone’s fucking each other. Goddamned bunch of inbreeders. I’m gonna have two-headed grandchildren, or something."

"She’s adopted, Dad."

"Yeah. But she’s still your twin."

"No, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way."

There’s a long pause, and then George, Sr. says: "So, what’d she do? Get you drunk?"

George Michael looks frighteningly pale; a mariachi band starts up behind their table.

 

* * *

* * *

 

**XII**

**i won’t run far; i can always be found.**

 

* * *

 

He’s still drunk and it’s still Mexico and late one night (maybe two nights later) he calls Lindsay:

"I’ve made a huge mistake," he says.

"Well, yeah, Michael," is all she says. There’s a crash and a yell and what sounds like singing in the background.

"What the hell is that?" he slurs.

"Oh. You know. Mrs. Featherbottom’s back."

"Oh," he says. And then: "I’m coming home," he mutters, his tongue stumbling over and past too much tequila.

(He is going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning.)

"Yeah?" she asks and she snorts or laughs or maybe it’s a sob for a hitch of a second or maybe his ears are just cloudy (too drunk) and he starts laughing.

"Yeah."

He flops back on the mattress after hanging up and laughs again, thinking of houses that sink and bad lawyers and business failures and a girl (despite all his efforts) that’s always been more than just a sister.

"We’re going home," he tells his father and his son; they both look strangely at him and he’s not sure if it’s because of what he said or because his shirt’s untucked, his hair’s a mess and he’s clearly very much so drunk.

"Why?" George Michael asks.

He thinks of telling him there’s been an emergency or Gangee’s done something crazy or Buster lost another hand or GOB has disappeared — but he doesn’t.

"It’s family," he finally says.

The craziest part? He actually means it.

 

* * *

 

The model home still stands alone, the doorknob hot underneath his palm. He twists it left and walks on in.

She’s sitting on the couch.

(California feels like sun, no shade and Coppertone; hot asphalt and something a lot like home.)


End file.
